For months I predicted that the Illinois Legislature would not make the 5 percent income tax permanent before the Nov. 4 election, but would wait until the fall veto session, scheduled for Nov. 19. The “temporary” increase was passed in 2011; Gov. Pat Quinn and legislative leaders promised it would be rolled back in 2015. This spring they insisted it must be made permanent.

The first part of my prediction has come true. Now we’re waiting for the second part. The $35.7 billion budget lawmakers passed over the weekend assumes the income tax will drop to 3.75 percent, with the corporate rate going from 7 percent to 5.25 percent.

This would save taxpayers about $2 billion.

So, why no doomsday cuts? It’s because tricks from the bad old days are being played again. The Legislature gave Quinn authority to raid the state’s 708 special-purpose funds to the tune of $650 million to put in the general fund. The “fund sweep” was used liberally by ex-governor and convicted felon Rod Blagojevich.

The budget also delays paying old bills, reversing the $3.6 billion worth of progress that Senate President John Cullerton says has been made in reducing the backlog. The income tax increase has also paid down $8 billion in pension debt since 2011, Cullerton said. That progress could be reversed, too.

The budget “is pretty much what I expected,” said state Sen. Tim Bivins, R-Dixon. “(Democrats) passed a budget better than their initial one, but we (Republicans) made the point that they created a doomsday scenario and then passed a budget without saying a word about doomsday.”

Even so, the budget isn’t a bare bones affair, Bivins said, because no one has taken a close look at what works and what doesn’t.

“The Department of Labor got $20 million more to give out in grants, something they’ve never had. The state Board of Education received $3.5 million more. Neither department asked for more money,” Bivins said.

Bivins gave me an example of a failed program that started with noble intentions. It continues to be funded even though it will never reach its goal.

In 2006, Bivins said, the Legislature passed a “grow your own teachers” program to train 1,000 teachers who would remain in their home communities and teach in poorer schools. The goal was to be accomplished by 2016.

“We’re into the eighth year of that program and, to date, it has trained 94 teachers, 74 of whom are still teaching. They’ve spent $21.6 million, about $230,000 per teacher. At this rate it will take 100 years to train 1,000 teachers,” Bivins said.

Just think. Are there more programs like that? What if we actually knew what we are getting for our money — and what we are not getting? How much could be cut from the budget without affecting services? $1 billion, $2 billion, $3 billion?

Page 2 of 2 - House Speaker Mike Madigan explained that he did not call a vote to make the income tax increase permanent because he just couldn’t get enough Democrats to vote for it. This seems odd because Madigan, “the velvet hammer,” has a knack for applying the appropriate pressure to get what he wants.

Or maybe he did get what he wants. Bivins provided a comparison with another controversial vote pushed through by Madigan.

“When we enacted pension reform for new hires two or three years ago, it passed in 10 hours. Either (Madigan) has lost his grip or maybe he didn’t really want it to pass,” Bivins said.

After the election, a world of possibilities will open up. If Democrat Quinn is re-elected, you can expect lame-duck Democrats to assist in making the 5 percent tax permanent. If Republican Bruce Rauner topples Quinn, Democrats might just let the tax increase expire and let the man they call “Billionaire Bruce” deal with the consequences.